26 October, 2010

The second force in my Doctor Who project to appear on this blog are the Cybermen. One of Doctor Who's oldest and favorite villains, the Cybermen were once humanoids who gradually replaced their worn-out body parts with robotics, ending up as emotionless cyborgs. They first appeared in 1966's The Tenth Planet, the last story of the First Doctor , and have appeared often since then. In some stories, they convert prisoners into more Cybermen. I would love to have some 'partially-converted' figures to use in games. If you know of any suitable miniatures, please let me know!

My Cybermen force consists of 32 figures They were painted in 2008-2010. Eighteen of them are 28mm Black Tree Design and 14 are plastic figures from the 1980s Citadel Cybermen & Daleks box set. The BTD figures are a mix of different models, as the Cybermen have changed in appearance over the 40+ years of the show. It doesn't bother me to use them together though. The Citadel plastic figures are slightly smaller, but once based I think they look okay in separate units. I have included a comparison picture. This force is rather too big for a normal-sized game, so the plastic ones serve to bulk out the force for larger multi-player games. The difficulty in getting BTD figures nowadays makes the plastics a reasonable way to have a larger force. All of the figures are on slottabases, with metal washers underneath for use in my magnetic storage system. The washers also give the plastic figures some weight so they don't tip over. As stated in my previous post on the Sontarans, I use the Doctor Who Miniatures Game (DWMG) rules to play scenarios set in the 'Whoniverse'. They are available at http://www.drwhominiatures.co.uk/ and there is also an active Yahoo group.

Click on the pictures for a close-up.

First is the merciless Cybercontroller:

The 1st squad of 5 Cybermen (1980s Earthshock era figures):

The 2nd squad of 5 Cybermen (3rd-4th Doctor era figures):

The 3rd squad of 5 Cybermen (3rd-4th Doctor era figures). The front center figure has part of his helmet painted black to indicate he is a Cyberleader:

Next is the 2-man Cyberlaser team, the Cybermen's heavy weapons support These figures are not on Slottabases, but have had their tabs removed and are on a GF9 base. They are earlier figures from the 2nd Doctor's era, as can be seen from their more primitive design.

These are the 14 Citadel plastic Cybermen. They are unfortunately all in the same pose. The one in the front center has had part of his helmet painted black to indicate that he is a Cyberleader.

Here is the entire force of 32 Cybermen. The 3 BTD squads are lead by the Cyberleader, with the Cyberlaser team and the Citadel Cybermen supporting from the rear.

This is a comparison shot. The figure on the left is one of the Citadel plastics; the one on the right is an Earthshock-era BTD figure. The difference is apparent when they are next to each other, but separated into different units I think they look okay.

24 October, 2010

This is the first in a series of posts on a project that I have been working on in fits and starts for years: a set of forces based on the long-running BBC program Doctor Who. My preferred rules are the excellent Doctor Who Miniatures Game (DWMG) which are available on the internet for free at: http://www.drwhominiatures.co.uk/. The website also has a lot of scenarios for both classic and new Doctor Who, and there is an active Yahoo Group for the game as well.

The first force to be posted are the Sontarans. The Sontarans are a warrior race of clones. They are one of the older villains on Doctor Who, with their first appearance in 1973's The Time Warrior and their most recent appearance was in 2008.

My Sontaran force currently consists of 2 squads of 6. Each squad has 5 clone soldiers, one armed with a laser rifle, and 1 leader. All of the miniatures are 28mm from Black Tree Design. They are mounted on slottabases, with a metal washer underneath for storage on magnetic sheeting. All were painted in fall 2010. Click on the pictures for a close-up.